Dependency

I was talking to a friend this morning who is at last breaking away from a relationship that has left him feeling insecure, unhappy, and bitter.  He thinks that he has lost the ability to trust another because of being with a person who has proven to be untrustworthy.  He admitted that he had continued in this relationship out of a sense of loyalty.

I truly understand what he is doing.  I too have stayed in a relationship that was bad for me, and I stayed out of loyalty and some kind of hope that things would get better.  Now things are much better, and I'm glad that I stuck around.  But I also wonder about the cost that it took on me.

As long as I was not in a relationship,  I was happy with who I was and what I did.  I remember in high school that I fell head over heels for this brainy, attractive, exciting girl. We had a great time for over a year, until she started going out with another fellow. The pain of loss during the break up was like a death. It was a time of grieving.  But eventually I was able to move on.  But as soon as I would become involved with someone again, I would start looking critically at myself, become anxious, and essentially begin to push the person that I loved away because of my fear of being hurt.

Irish at Recovery Archive had the following to say about dependency in her post today: I am only free of my dependency to the extent that I am able to see my own irrational clinging to people places and things, (various conditions) in a deluded attempt to pin reality down to a controllable form.  Because I am powerless over people places and things, this attempt to control people and places and things leads only to suffering.

So often the frightening part of letting go of control is not about what happens to others but what will happen to me.  I used to think that it would mean that I failed in a relationship because I couldn't "fix" another, and that if I were to let go of control, things would fall apart.  Maybe these are similar fears that alcoholics feel when they have to give up booze. I have heard all kinds of excuses from others and from me about why I wouldn't give up on another. Isn't that an addiction of sorts?

In the end it comes down to choices of whether I want to live an authentic life or one that is predicated on fear of loss. Today, I can see how far I've come in understanding that I don't need to control in order to relate to others. Now I am seeing after being in a long-term relationship that we have to work on it--it is like the care and feeding of fragile plant.  It has to be tended and the weeds pulled in order to grow.  What is my idea of being in a healthy relationship?  I think it means that we encourage each other, we care for each other but have a balance in which we maintain independence too, we speak kindly to each other without sarcasm and anger, we help each other out, we are intertwined gently with gossamer and not chains.

The Invisible Boat

I guess you know by now that I really like boats. And I like analogies. I also am a member of a rowing team. So what could be better than a row boat analogy? I was listening to a speaker tape this morning. It happened to be Clancy I. who was speaking. He talked about the Invisible Boat. So I thought that I would provide an excerpt from his talk today. It is food for thought.

The curse of alcoholism is that eventually reality gets bad enough so you have to drink and the curse of drinking is that eventually it gets bad enough that you have to get sober. That combination is called alcoholism.

It doesn’t make any difference if you’re the man who put the flag on the moon or if you’re the man who came out from under the bridge, if you’ve got it there’s no way out because you cannot make sustained reality. Because every time alcohol works for you, it interferes with your ability to live in reality. It distorts perception, and that is why it’s such a difficult thing to treat.

There’s been a great deal of controversy over the years about treatment centers. Old-timers who got sober years ago are not very pleased with the treatment center concept. “We got sober and, by God, we stayed sober.” And they did. It’s just difficult.

And, for my first 15 years, I hardly wanted to talk to people who came out of treatment centers. I thought they were jerks. As I’ve gotten a little more sophisticated, I’ve come to realize there’s a difference. There are good treatment centers and bad treatment centers. But it’s hard to tell which are which, and your life depends on deciding which is which. You think, “Why would anyone want to go to a treatment center anyway?”

The best analogy I’ve been able to think of is it’s like going up to Lake Superior, say Ashland, and say I want to go to Canada. And there’s a nice little yacht sitting there with attendants in their white uniforms, and you smell dinner cooking, and they say, “Won’t you come with us on the S.S. Treatment Center?”

And you say, “Maybe.” And over here are two guys lurking in the underbrush along the shore, saying. “We’re from A.A. You want to come with us in our invisible boat?”

Nobody in their right mind is going to get in an invisible boat if they can get on the treatment center boat, I’ll tell you. So you get on there and you’re glad. It’s comfortable, it’s nice, it’s warm, and they feed you and it’s good. And the only problem is you’re just about in sight of the shore and they say, “Well, this is where we turn back. Gotta go back and get another load.’

“What am I gonna do?” you ask. “Well, just swim like hell.” And you’re out there swimming and crying, and here come those two goofs in their invisible boat. “You want a ride, buddy?” “I’m not that sick.” And pretty soon you’re drowning and here they come again. “You want a ride, buddy?” Choking and sputtering, you say “yeah.” You get in and as soon as you dry off, you realize “This is stupid. There’s no boat here. We’re floating in midair. This is goofy.” “What am I supposed to do, you guys?” “Grab an oar and row.” “You’re crazy. You’re crazy.” And right then, anybody with sense says “Adios, pal.”

And finally you’re drowning one more time. “You want to get in our boat?” Choking and sputtering again, you say “yeah” and get back in. “What do you want me to do?” “Grab an oar and row.” “Oh, you silly idiots!”

And the irony of A.A. is that as you begin to row, the boat appears. But it doesn’t appear until you begin to row. And you’ve got to be desperate to row an invisible boat. That’s what sponsors are for. They come along from time to time and say, “Hey, goof, you’ve got your oar upside down.” As you row the boat appears. If you keep rowing long enough, you get a very fine craft. Pretty soon it exceeds the S.S. Treatment Center.

Pretty soon it gets to be as big and as nice as you want to make it. And the only sad thing is no matter how long it takes, when you start to rest on your oar and don’t row, it begins to disappear again. And if you wait long enough on rowing, you’re back in the water.

That is why people with 25 or 30 or 50 years of sobriety get drunk. Because they’ve got where they want to be and there’s no sense in rowing anymore. “I’m there.”

And that’s the function of A.A., to encourage and re-encourage one another to re-commit ourselves to keep rowing no matter how well I’m doing, to just keep rowing. And that’s what the boat is about.

The function of A.A. and its Steps and its sponsors and these actions and involvement is not to make you wonderful. They’re to do something infinitely more complex. They are to upgrade your perception of reality. You’ve got to look at the same things and over a period of time see them differently or they get so depressing you can’t handle it. And you’ve got to keep going and you’ve got to keep trying this.

And, unfortunately for you and me, no matter how you work the program, you will never rise above a basic human being. And human beings are weak and fallible and cross and emotional. No matter how spiritual you get.

And the difference between the “good” treatment center and the “bad” one is simply this: The bad treatment center leads its patients into believing that they are now well enough to swim for the far shore on their own or, in other words, to leave treatment with enough knowledge to insure sobriety on a longterm basis. The “good” treatment center may perform the same functions within treatment perhaps but emphatically tells it’s departing patients, “You are dry, clean, fed and sober. But you’ll never be able to make the far shore on your own.”

So when you see those two guys in their invisible boat, jump in and start to row, whether you believe in it or not. You’ll be glad you did.

Clancy I., Venice, CA
Reprinted from the Harbor Light, Long Beach, which was reprinted from
MIRUS, the Minneapolis Intergroup newsletter.

I don't know if I could.....

I don't know if I could still live with active alcoholism. I was thinking about this yesterday as I watched how happy my loved one is. And so I thought about how much I love her, but I questioned whether I could live with her drinking again. And the answer is: I don't know.

Those years were tumultuous. And even though I feel at peace much of the time, I know that the anxiety of being around someone who is actively drinking would tear at me. I hear it talked about in meetings: the pain and the sadness of living with active alcoholism. I listen but did I really hear what they were saying? Maybe I was stuck in my smugness thinking that it won't happen with us. But the alcoholic is only one drink away from disaster.

Even though I practice the program and know about detachment, it's still hard for me to envision detaching sufficiently to remain in an alcoholic relationship. Why am I thinking about this today? I don't actually know, other than my inventory is telling me that I feel anxious, like a shoe is about to fall. Maybe it's seeing the contrast of a happy person who is sober and thinking back to those unhappy times when alcohol was in charge. God, I don't want to go there ever again.

Getting help

I listened to a lady in one of the meetings talk about her husband who had a seizure after two days of not drinking. She got him to the hospital where he was kept for a couple of days--it wasn't a detox center but just part of the regular hospital. He still drinks heavily and she has come to Al-Anon to help herself gain some sanity.

One of the things that has been stressed to me is the importance of getting to know AA's who are long-timers in the program. And to call upon them should a situation arise in which the alcoholic relapses. The reasoning is that another alcoholic on a Twelfth Step call will know how to deal with someone who has relapsed. In cases where there are family members who are upset, it is good to indicate that as an Al-Anoner, you could ride along and offer E, S, and H to the family of the active alcoholic.

If there is a medical emergency such as the seizure, then timing will be essential. So a 911 call would be necessary but perhaps it could also be appropriate to get in touch with AA once the medical emergency is over and ask them to visit the alcoholic.

I've actually made a mental plan about what I will do should my alcoholic relapse. It's not an easy thing to contemplate but it's best to have a plan rather than a meltdown. It's a tough disease and there are no guarantees.

One Step Back and One Step Forward

After having a much needed meeting last night, I went to the nearby restaurant with some Al-Anons and a couple of AA fellows. We sat and talked about the roundup and other things related to the program. I had called home on the way to the meeting and after the meeting. Things seemed to be okay.

When I got home though the proverbial shit hit the fan. My SO started by saying that I had no interest other than with the program and that because we had such different interests, it seemed best for her to take a bedroom upstairs and for me to either move out or stay in the downstairs wing of the house. Needless to say, I was taken aback.

I would like to tell you that I detached with love and let go and let God. I would like to tell you that I just accepted that she was tired after a business meeting out of town and that all would be okay. But I reverted to my old behavior and tried to discuss the matter. Rather than just say, I'll talk to you tomorrow and let her sleep upstairs, I asked what was going on to bring this tirade about. So I got a lot of resentment lobbed my way, and I accepted it. As I was embracing all her resentments though, I realized that I didn't feel anger at her or any resentment myself. She said that she wanted things to be the way that they were. And I told her gently that wasn't possible because neither of us are the same people we once were. I told her that I was finally making some good friends in the fellowship and that it was good to get together after the meeting. I said that I was doing what I needed to do for me. Then, she lapsed into self-pity, claiming that it was all her fault with the drinking and that had driven me away. At this point, I just listened. I wanted to say, "No, it wasn't just the drinking that drove me away it was the depression, the self-pity, the martyrdom, and the lack of any interest in me until I started having outside interests myself." But no I didn't say anything. I just walked over and took her hand and said "let's go downstairs and get some sleep".

I got about 3 hours of sleep last night but thankfully today is a different day. She still is wallowing in self-pity to a degree but has gotten better as the day has worn on. I put some speaker tapes on and we listened to those. I took the day off today to be home and be around and try to get some rest. I wouldn't have been much good at work anyway.

What happened to me last night made me realize that it is so easy for me to get back into those behaviors that made me crazy and empty. Today, I'm thinking about Steps One through Three and going over them in my mind. After doing that this morning, I have found that today is a different day. One day at a time is all I can do.

"Today I have a chance to make a contribution to my sense of well-being. I can take some small action that will strengthen a relationship, pursue a goal, or help me to feel better about myself. I don't expect to dramatically alter my life. My goal is simply to move in a positive direction, knowing that major strides often begin with very small steps. " from Courage to Change